Y'know, that is not normally my type of movie, but that review almost makes me want to go see it.

I've been thinking that way. Reviews are also really good. Interestingly, my dad, who is in his 70s, watched it with some friends and reported that it was "the dumbest damn movie I have ever seen." He said there was no plot; all just car chases and such. He said it was pretty fantastical, at which point I had to ask if he'd seen the original. He claims he had, and liked it. I wonder if he has his movies mixed up.

My husband said he read a review saying something like "Three chicks try to get their art car to Burning Man."

I'm real curious to see what I think of it. Even if it is a plotless shoot 'em up but has significant female characters being badass, that's still a nice change of pace.

I loved it. My dad's comments about the lack of plot kept my expectations in check in that regard. Here's what I emailed my dad:

I just let the visuals wash over me. I had to pee for most of the movie, but refused to get up and miss any of it. Eric and I thought the guitar player was the best part. I was happy that it wasn't as gory as I thought it would be. The elaborate costumes and lovingly crafted crazy vehicles, the guys on those swinging stilt things, spraying your teeth silver when you expect to die because ... why? I don't know. It looked cool, though.

But also, and this is key, there were women in this movie! Not just as eye candy. Not as the excuse for a guy to go all alpha male and be her big bad protector. Loved the one-armed (I guess, one-handed) Charlize Theron. Loved the female biker gang at the end. Was skeptical of the Victoria's Secret models (how *did* that one woman manage to keep her strapless bikini top in perfect position the whole time?), but rather than just being baggage along for the ride, they actively did what they could to help with their own rescue. And at the end, the female lead looks like she's been through hell, while the male lead has a demure little cut on his eyebrow. TOTAL reversal of how male and female action protagonists are typically shown.

And I kind of love how the crazy War Boy who's just a kid slowly realizes that <spoiler redacted>

So, yeah. That was a super fun ride, and I didn't leave the theater grumbling about the female characters, or lack thereof.

It had a plot, it just wasn't laid out in advance of the action. Exposition was frequent, but economical. That more than anything is what was so special about this movie. There was nothing wasted.

I more or less gave up on fantasy novels, because they've gotten just ridiculously long and, IMO, boring. Some fans defend such 1000 page corpse-weights because it is supposedly necessary for world-building. From now on, if I encounter this idea, I will immediately think of Fury Road to remind me how wrong that is.

All of the Mad Max movies get better the more you see them think about them. There's almost nothing in them that isn't specifically intended to make some kind of sense. Yes, that includes Thunderdome. If anything Thunderdome's problem is that too much of its backstory is implicit. Perhaps the same is true of Fury Road, and I was inoculated against it by watching Thunderdome many, many times. But it isn't to the same extent, because Fury Road's plot, setting and backstory are deliberately kept simple, and the important aspects of it are explicit (if given in single lines of dialogue with little or no further revisitation, so your dad could easily miss it).

I am actually surprised by how much I liked this movie. The cult of the main bad guy was disturbing on a number of levels, but the cancer and other maladies they experience really unsettled me. It helped that my husband had read up on the world-building so he was able to fill in some gaps. (The silver spray carries a drug that gives them a high, and also the chrome is supposed to help them be found again in the afterlife so they can be reborn.)

But really, the women and Max were where it's at. I love the whole dynamic from the moment they meet to the moment he decides to leave so as not to let himself get tangled up again. We rewatched it recently and I figured I wouldn't pay much attention, but it sucked me right back in.

(The silver spray carries a drug that gives them a high, and also the chrome is supposed to help them be found again in the afterlife so they can be reborn.)

It doesn't need a drug beyond what ordinary spray paint would have. People huff that to get high. Hell, metallic paint on one's face was already almost a self-destructive-moron cliche before Fury Road.

(The silver spray carries a drug that gives them a high, and also the chrome is supposed to help them be found again in the afterlife so they can be reborn.)

It doesn't need a drug beyond what ordinary spray paint would have. People huff that to get high. Hell, metallic paint on one's face was already almost a self-destructive-moron cliche before Fury Road.